TAYMOND CEUNG
by KaleyTheCat61
Summary: Two childhood flings meet each other again in all the wrong circumstances. Can love turn into hate then turn back into love?
1. Prologue

~Taymond Ceung Fanfic~

By: Kylie

Prologue

The first time Taylor saw him was in 2nd grade. He looked as handsome as ever with his soft features and red lips along with the warmest dark brown eyes ever. Raymond. Raymond Chan was his name.

1 year later

3rd grade started. Cue the "dating" beginning. Taylor spent her 3rd grade year shamelessly flirting with Raymond, the boy of her dreams.

2 years later

During the 4th grade Taylor found herself obsessing over this boy. She blushed whenever Raymond came near her. She was hopelessly endeared.

3 years later

This huge obsession Taylor had over Raymond wasn't doing her any good. 5th grade was the year of drama. A lot of drama.

The friends Taylor had made over the last couple of years definitely noticed what was going on. And they weren't happy at all. Taylor was literally becoming Raymond trash. Raymond this, Raymond that. She would spend hours gazing at him. She would ignore her friends to get his attention.

And there was still one obstacle; Johanna Lin. Johanna definitely flirted a ton with Raymond and Taylor wasn't okay with that. Raymond belonged to HER AND HER ONLY. Raymond didn't realize it yet, she kept telling herself; he didn't realize that him and her were soulmates. Soon, she thought. Soon.

4 years later

6th grade led to them going different paths. Taylor attended Cunningham, while Raymond attended Bay Academy. But that didn't stop them from flirting. They flirted day and night on Musically and that definitely caught everyone's attention. But eventually their differences made them stop interacting all at once.

TBC I HOPED EVERYONE ENJOYED❤️


	2. Chapter 1

The Underground is always crowded in the winter, when London's yellow streetlight haze is too weak to lift the snow fog on Chilworth Mews and there's nothing to do but shiver, wet breath heating your scarf and steaming your glasses as you tramp down the slick, dirty steps of Paddington Station clutching a violin case to your chest at 6 a.m. It's absolutely wretched, and sort of beautiful.

Taylor Leung couldn't see on this particular morning. Her limbs ached with sleep and her fingertips felt frostbitten in the cold. They itched as she descended into the damp heat of Paddington, all echoing tile walls and the faint smell of piss, one small note in a dissonant tone poem of humanity already up and rushing to jobs in the City. She hurriedly wiped the mist from her glasses as she touched her Oyster card to the reader and stumbled through the turnstile, lifting her violin protectively to nudge the hard metal bar with her hip.

A small coffee stand was doing good business just down the tunnel from the platform. Taylor smiled gratefully at the vendor as she dropped 90p onto the counter with a satisfying, musical clink and accepted a styrofoam cup filled with hot, black liquid. She turned to catch her train.

"Change?" the vendor called after her, holding a shiny 5p up between grimy fingers.

"Never," Taylor quipped, and mustered the energy to throw the old man a wink as she headed to the platform.

The 6:14 Hammersmith & City was right on time. Taylor ducked onto a car and sat with one arm around her violin, hugging it to her side as she sipped her coffee and glanced around at her fellow travelers. There was a tired-looking woman in a faded lavender coat, fussing over a smudge on the cheek of her cranky toddler. They were discordant, obviously. A quiet, workaday harmony that wound through the stable melody of the train and expressed all those tiny frustrations, the sideways steps in the steady march of life. Come 'ere, love. You come 'ere now. There was also a large man, frowning as he flipped through the Financial Times. Taylor added a bass sigh - down, down, down - underneath the upbeat, rhythmic notes of the melody, a tremolo every time another newspaper page fluttered over. A young woman, probably a student, gazed steadily out the dark window of the train at the flashes of electricity, dreaming or staring at her own reflection. She sang a tentative descant in Taylor's mind, the only note of hope this morning.

-I HOPE YA ENJOYED DC CMIJEFCIMJDCC THIS WEBSITE IS TERRIBLE SO I HAD TO WORK MY ASS OFF TO PUBLISH THIS LITTLE THING


	3. Chapter 2

It was all a horrible muddle. Taylor frowned, staring into the grainy dregs of her cup, cracking the styrofoam rim with her thumbnail. Widening the rip, letting small white confetti flake off onto her coat. Some mornings her little game yielded results. Taylor would arrive at rehearsal enthused, leitmotif from the train running through her head, fingers twitching to translate notes onto staff paper.

Nothing was good enough, though. Especially not lately, under the oppressive winter sky that had wrapped London in dirty cotton for months, muffling all the sharp thoughts in Taylor's head. Letting nothing but empty wind howl through the cold streets. Squealing strings.

"I hate avant-garde," she muttered.

St. Luke's was a short walk up Goswell Road from Barbican Station, then east on Old Street for a few hundred meters. Taylor slipped through the wrought iron gate and stared up for a moment at the stark grey stone church, which had been remodeled in the mid-90s into a rehearsal space for the London Symphony Orchestra.

A raven circled the steeple, gothic and cawing, like something out of Poe. Taylor huffed a cloud into the air and wondered why the end of January always insisted on being the most depressing part of the year.

The sun was barely up by the time she was settled into one of the practice rooms in the church's warren-like maze of a basement, playing scales and practicing runs, warming up her fingers. One small beat of satisfaction - she was the first in. Taylor always took a grim sort of pride in being the first member of the orchestra to arrive, and the last to leave. Dedication was what she had to offer. It had been her dedication and unwavering attention to technique that had lifted her above other young violinists, won her scholarships and accolades in her steady climb to hold the coveted position of concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra at the young age of 25. Pairs of sixteenth notes, slurring up the staff. A low trill. A staccato run.

Soon she was deep into the music. Practicing never failed to take Taylor to another dimension: a painless, bloodless state of complete focus that when she was younger had been her greatest escape - a refuge from her parents' divorce, from the messy process of leaving RC, from the stress of auditions scene - and was now a sort of drug that she'd come to depend on. She was in control of her fingers. In control of the music, in control of her orchestra. Numb to everything but the notes on the page.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Ally had to knock three times before Taylor registered the extra sound. She blinked, easing her left elbow down as she turned to stare at her wide-eyed face in the glass panel of the door. It was like coming up from a deep ocean dive. The sound of her insistent rapping rung in her ears; she felt lightheaded for a second, instinctively cross at the interruption.

She set her Amati carefully in its case, feeling a ridiculous pang of separation as her fingers left the polished spruce, glowing even in the harsh fluorescent light, the color of fine old whiskey.

She cracked the door. "Yes?" she asked, in a clipped voice.

Everyone knew not to interrupt her when she was practicing. Ally, her stand partner and associate concertmaster, knew this rule better than anybody. Taylor couldn't help but wonder for a fleeting second if this was some sort of sabotage - she'd been her closest competition for years, and was always eyeing her job. But,

"They've finally hired an interim conductor," she said, breathlessly.

Oh.

"About time."

Valery Gergiev, longtime principal conductor of the LSO, artistic director of the heralded White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg and Grammy winner - along with many other accolades of course, although the small, scruffy Russian in his pristine tuxedo standing uncomfortably next to a Lady Gaga clad only in discarded iPhone cases was an image for the ages - had elected in December to take a hiatus to pursue other projects.

The LSO's managing director, Julie Keller, had been hemming and hawing over appointing an interim conductor for weeks, and Taylor was getting frankly fed up. She'd tried to impress upon Keller, the importance of the relationship between conductor and concertmaster, tried to explain the almost psychic rapport that she and Valery had slowly but surely developed through practice and creative dialogue. It had resulted in some very solid performances last season, and Taylor was certain that throwing some random stranger into the mix this late would only cause problems - more problems the longer they put off the decision.

"Trust, Keller," is what she had said when she'd cornered the tall, bequiffed man in his office two days before. "I don't need to like him. Hell, friendship? Don't care. But trust. I have to be able to trust him."

And nothing. For three weeks the orchestra had been in limbo.

"So?" Taylor snapped. "Who is it?" She tried to project an air of unaffected sharpness, all business and no insecurities - no sense in letting Ally see her with her panties in a bunch.

She shook her head. "Don't know."

Taylor sighed, sweeping her dark black hair off her forehead with an elegant flick of her bowing wrist as her mind raced through the possibilities. "Well, who do we think, Rattle? Barenboim?"

"I heard it's someone young."

"Someone young?" Taylor nearly choked. Not that it had to matter, but... she was the young one. The hip kid with the most Youtube hits, the nerdy fangirls, the social media buzz. Her brain struggled to process this information even as it switched gears and started to produce a new set of names.

Levinthal? Not seasoned enough. Yang? His Mahler cycle was atrocious...

Ally smiled sweetly at her, eyes full of poison as she murmured, "I'll let you get back to your warm up." She flipped her cascade of long, black hair over her shoulder as she walked down the hall, conservative heels tapping on the linoleum. The mellow notes of a trombone followed her, the hollow flutter of a flute, strings like singing cicadas… The orchestra was waking up.

Taylor had to find out who their new conductor was before the situation got out of hand. She had to know who he was dealing with. She packed up her sheet music, silently fuming that Keller hadn't called her first, that she'd had to find out from Ally, all people.


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

She found Sam kissing one of the second violins in the stairwell.

"Ahem."

Wet, sloppy noises. Uncoordinated and singularly unappealing. (You'd think musicians would have a better ear for this sort of thing.)

"Ahem."

Taylor gave up and tapped Sam on the shoulder, fixing him with a quick glare as he startled and turned around, wiping his mouth on his shirtsleeve.

"Oi, Taylor?"

Taylor didn't acknowledge him, instead raising her eyebrows at the second violin. "Shouldn't you be practicing that coda, Cynthia? With all the acciaccaturas you were asking me for help with yesterday?" She nodded, looking properly ashamed of herself. In another second she was gone, adjusting her skirt, and Taylor had turned back to Sam.

"Rude," she said, simply.

"You're the rude one." Sam reached out to tweak Taylor's ear and this was -

"... getting so inappropriate, Ronin, I swear to God I'll…"

Sam just grinned and pinched the other one. Hard.

"Spill, babe."

"What?"

"The interim conductor. I know you know."

"I might." Sam waggled his eyebrows at Taylor suggestively.

"Don't flirt with me, Ronin. Who is it?"

"Raymond Chan."

And, no. Taylor thought she might have just hallucinated, because that name was not on any of her lists, did not rank among even the remotest of possibilities. Raymond Chan. Raymond Chan.

"You're wrong."

"I'm not."

"Then someone lied to you."

Sam drew himself up at that sarcastic slight on his honor, puffing out his chest and poking Taylor in the shoulder. "Got it straight from Keller last night and she was tellin' God's truth, bet me life and your future adopted babies on it."

Taylor considered this. She paced to the right, flicking her bangs out of habit and pique. Paced to the left, worrying her bottom lip.

Sam clapped her on the back, already distracted, looking down the hall to where Cynthia had disappeared into a vacant practice room. "You'll do fine with him. I know Raymond."

"Of course you do. You know all of Europe, right down to snotty Prince George."

Sam grinned. "I think you'll get on."

Taylor rolled her eyes.

"Not if he's still…" she murmured under her breath.

But Sam was already gone.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Keller made the official announcement during rehearsal that afternoon. Taylor tried to keep her face calm and impassive, tried to let phrases like "thrilling young talent" and "the next Toscanini" wash over her. Inside, she was roiling. She tried to swallow, but her throat was oddly dry, her throat stuck like a lump of clay. Just the thin winter air, she told herself, not noticing that her right knee was jiggling nervously. "He'll be taking over after our big Night of Romance Valentine's bash," Keller continued. "Very exciting. Thank you again to the life-saving Ms. Price for stepping in to rehearse and conduct that performance." She nodded at Lucinda Price, the London Philharmonic's assistant conductor, who had been called up on short notice a few weeks before. She smiled and bowed to a polite smattering of applause. "Mr. Chan will be conducting three cycles with us, in March, April, and June. He has some very… original ideas." Taylor hoped she was imagining the slightly worried look on Keller's face as her gaze flickered down to the first violins. "I'm sure we'll all find his work quite provocative. Right," she concluded with a clap. "Back to work, chaps and ladies." Provocative. Oh, God. "Raymond Chan!" Ally squealed under her breath, grabbing Taylor's arm as Keller stepped down from the podium. "Can you believe it?" Taylor made a soft noise, trying to clear the itch in her throat. "Not really." "But it's a brilliant choice, isn't it?" Taylor bit her lip. They were supposed to be getting out sheet music for the Swan Lake Overture, part of the tired old lineup for LSO's annual Valentine's Day concert. Taylor could probably play the entire program in her sleep. (She'd tried to convince Keller that Swan Lake wasn't exactly the most romantic of stories, anyway, and that they should spruce things up by replacing it with something more obscure and unexpected, like the Lullaby from Kakhidze's Amazons Suite. But she'd received only a snort and a "Stop being ridiculous, Leung," for her troubles. As usual. "I wouldn't know." "You've heard of him, though, obviously…" Ally whispered as she tucked her violin under her chin. "Cello prodigy, wants to break into conducting. He was on Leno last week." "What kind of conductor goes on Leno?" Taylor hissed back, softly stroking the opening notes of Swan Lake underneath the contemplative oboe solo. "Previn wrote a glowing piece about him in The Times." "Oh, lovely, so we should all just bow down to André…" "Taylor." "What? So I've not been brainwashed by Raymond Chan." Ally just pursed her lips and turned back to their music, bowing with the sort of forced theatrical gusto that Taylor had always found incredibly grating in performers. Solid technique was enough for her and hold the extra flourishes, thank you very much. Timpani rolled like thunder as the overture rose toward its familiar climax, music still striking a chord in Taylor after all these years. It made her think of searching. Of uncertainty, and long separation. The truth is, she'd been avoiding Chan-related press as much as possible, and now found herself reluctantly wondering what Raymond looked like as an adult. Bet he's not gotten rid of that layer of baby pudge… "Earth to Leung." Taylor realized with a start that she was still holding her final note, having missed Ms. Price's cut off. His open E string vibrated up to the high ceiling of Jerwood Hall. "Um… God, sorry. Slight brain aneurysm. Won't happen again." The rest of the violins were tittering, whispering under their breath. Taylor frowned. The music was just so comfortable; she'd played it about a million times and she'd only been distracted for a second anyway, so it was no big deal. Not even a small deal, really. And now everybody was looking at her. Wonderful. "Well, other than that you were lovely," Ms. Price smiled at her. "So I suppose I'll forgive you. Okay, from 121, please, just the viola section..." Taylor shook her head, trying to clear it and re-focus. Ally smirked next to her, flipping back a few pages in the score and unconsciously following along with the violas on her fingerboard. "You're jealous," she whispered. Taylor blinked at her. "You're going to have to explain that one to me, love." "Of Raymond. Because he's going to get all the attention, isn't he? Swooping in, stealing your thunder, when you're used to being the shining star all the old ladies want to talk to at fundraisers." "Right, it's Raymond now, is it? You two are on a first-name basis?" "Not yet, but…" Her poisonous smile was back. "I wonder if he ever dates co-workers." Taylor couldn't help snorting, almost knocking her bow against the stand as she tried to muffle her laughter in the arm of his maroon jumper. "Oh my god. You're going to try to put the moves on Raymond Chan?" "Maybe I am." "Good luck with that." She turned back to the music, resolving to pay attention to rehearsal and to stop bickering about Raymond goddamn Chan. They had a couple more weeks before he would grace them all with his wondrous presence, anyway, and Taylor was sure everyone would get sick of gossiping about their new conductor before then. So. Time to lead her orchestra in the soppiest, most commercial love songs classical music had to offer. Without even one thought about how the LSO was Taylor's kingdom, her home, and Raymond Chan would ruin it over his dead body. 


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Raymond paused on the corner and fished his gloves out of the pockets of his overcoat. It was a cold night, several degrees below freezing, but there was no wind and he'd enjoyed the bracing air on his skin as he walked to the end of the block, cheeks still rosy from the warmth of the pub. His hands were going a little numb now, though, so he tugged the buttery black leather onto his fingers and smiled as he flexed them in the warm fleece lining.

"Where did you get those things?" his sister had asked, when he'd visited her in Manchester that Friday. "Murderer's gloves!"

"Murderer's gloves?" he'd said in amused disbelief.

Kylie had nodded and shuddered, "Yeah. They're terrible. I keep picturing them wrapped around some poor lady's throat. Or, you know," she did a stabby motion, mimicking the screeching ee-ee-ee-ee music from Psycho, "like wielding a knife or something. Very attractive, H. Good purchase."

Raymond had let out a frustrated huff. "Wull, what am I supposed to do? Huh? Wear mittens?" he'd asked, finishing in an emphatic, slightly outraged squeak, as if there were no more childish item of clothing. Like, mittens? Really!

"Oh, heaven forbid!"

"These are the gloves of an adult man, all right?" he'd said, looking down his nose at her as he boxed out his shoulders and made a show of adjusting them, pulling at the wrists.

She'd just snorted out a laugh, and said, "Well, that makes sense; you guys do most of the murdering."

Raymond rolled his eyes, still smiling at the memory. He glanced up at the corner of the building on his left, reading off the name of the street. Long Lane. That's where he was. The corner of Long and Aldersgate. In London. Finally back in England, since the Wednesday before. Raymond was glad. It smelled right here. And the street signs were normal.

Not that this particular corner was all that familiar as of yet. Raymond glanced back over his shoulder at the pub he'd just left, The Old Red Cow. Sam had taken him out for dinner and few pints to celebrate his birthday, which had been two weeks before, and also this new job he was starting.

Tomorrow, actually. He'd begged off early, telling Sam he wanted to get a good night's sleep, but instead of turning into the tube station as he'd intended, he drifted across Aldersgate and moved further up Long, gazing at the Barbican Centre as he approached it.

His pulse rate ticked up the closer he got, and he shook his arms out a little as he walked, needing an outlet for his nervous energy. This was where he'd be heading to work in the morning. Interim Conductor. The London Symphony Orchestra. He rolled the words over in his mind, trying to get a grasp on them as he slowly made his way to the lake terrace entrance. He shoved his gloved hands into the pockets of his coat as he walked, taking in the strange beauty of the hulking building and the water in front of it, lit up in the dark.

Raymond had been to the Barbican before, when he was much younger. For several workshops, to see a few performances, and once even to perform himself. But his memories of it were in bits and pieces, scattered in his mind, and the layout of the streets and buildings in the area - of the centre itself - still felt alien and unknown.

He'd met Sam there years before, at one of the workshops. Raymond had been different back then, still adjusting to the weight of his rapidly increasing fame as a cellist and to the uncomfortable feeling of celebrity, and it had been Sam that seemed alien at first. Sam was this unapologetic, vibrant kid who still had braces and wore fluorescent high-tops everywhere. He was joyful, laidback, and easily confident, so happily wonderful at French horn.

Raymond had been slightly in awe of him, overwhelmed and awkward. But somehow, the next thing he knew, they were best friends. Raymond wasn't even sure how it had happened. It was as if Raymond had blinked and suddenly Sam was calling him Banana Boy and trying to pants him as they raced down the corridors of the basement at St. Luke's, like they were eleven years old and not eighteen. (Or maybe, yeah, exactly like they were eighteen, Raymond thought with a little roll of his eyes.) Sam had never stopped being his favorite. They didn't get to see each other often, but they always kept in touch through email and Raymond knew he was lucky that Sam was in this orchestra.

That he would be there with Raymond tomorrow.

He smiled; his heart was still thrumming along in his chest as he thought about the next day. He tilted his head back to look at the night sky above the fountain to his right, stars obscured by the light pollution, and took a deep breath.

He'd be with the orchestra for the next five months. Sometime soon, he knew he'd think back to tonight and remember how it felt, remember the weird and disjointed way he'd perceived the landscape before it became familiar. It was oddly comforting.

Raymond turned and shuffled toward the Barbican, walking up to the glass of the enormous windows and looking in at the inviting yellow glow. It would be open for another hour, but he didn't go inside. He could just make out the entrance to Barbican Concert Hall across the vaulted lobby.

There were large banners suspended from the ceiling at various intervals, leading the way to its doors, each one displaying a photograph from a famous LSO performance over the past several decades. Raymond was really only staring at one though, the closest to him. It was a recent black and white shot of Valery Gergiev, taken from stage left. Gergiev was in the foreground in the midst of conducting, his salt and pepper hair a cloudy halo around his head, giving him the effect of a mad musical genius.

Stormy and possessed, like Raymond imagined Beethoven had been at the end of his life. And just beyond Valery, set slightly back but still in sharp focus, was Taylor Leung on violin. Raymond's eyes narrowed in on her and locked there, fixed in place. Leung looked as precise as the focus of the picture, in absolute and exact control of his instrument. Her agile presence in the photograph was almost more strongly felt that Gergiev's.

"Don't worry about Taylor," Sam had said earlier, washing down his clam chowder with a swig of beer. "I know Tay. 'E's all bark, no bite. You guys'll get on."

"No bite," Raymond repeated to himself in a whisper with a single scoff of a laugh. His hands were clammy against the lining of his gloves as he tossed his head, taking a shaky, calming breath.

"You aren't ten fucking years old any more, you idiot," he muttered. He squeezed at the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, trying to ease the sudden twist of anxiety in his stomach.

It wasn't as if he didn't have the experience or the talent to have taken this job. In his heart of hearts, Raymond knew this could be absolutely amazing, that he could be amazing at it. He opened his eyes and took another lingering look at violinist towering before him, larger than life.

"You can do this," he whispered, steeling himself against the ridiculous shiver of teenage insecurity it sent through him.

Raymond shook his head one last time and huffed out a frustrated laugh, tearing his eyes away from Leung and forcing his body into motion, back toward the tube station at Long and Aldersgate. It was about a forty minute ride to his flat in Hampstead. He had to be in at seven the next morning to get settled into his office and see the facilities, probably blindly sign and initial a giant amount of paperwork.

All of that before his first rehearsal with the orchestra in the afternoon.

You can do this, Raymond thought again as he waited on the platform for the train, hunching against the cold. You want to do this. He'd lead orchestras all around the world. He'd drawn out incredible performances from institutions with far less talent than the LSO. He was wearing the gloves of an adult man! Everything would be all right. It would.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Everything was going perfectly all right, if a bit tediously, by 1:30 p.m. the next day. Raymond was holed up in his new Barbican Centre office reviewing his schedule for the next couple of months with a fastidiously well-dressed young man named Benicio Franqui. Julie had met Raymond outside promptly at 7:00 a.m. and then given him an exceedingly cursory tour of the Barbican before turning him over to Benicio. Benicio had some kind of administrative position in Development, but he'd been asked to act as Raymond's personal assistant until they managed to hire someone else full-time. Julie had apologized before she hurried away, apparently swamped with morning meetings, but she'd assured Raymond she would be there to introduce him to the orchestra at the 2:30 rehearsal that afternoon.

"So," Benicio said, nudging his tie out of the way to look down at the tablet in his lap, "you've got the St. Luke's Foundation fundraiser on March 11th."

Raymond nodded absently, shaking his leg under his desk and wondering why they couldn't have scheduled the day in the opposite order. Rehearsal first, administrative baloney second. His nerves about meeting the orchestra for the first time seemed to be compounding themselves with each passing minute. Raymond was usually pretty good off the cuff, but he felt increasingly uneasy about not having more formally prepared some kind of speech. What was your plan again, you dickhead? Just stand up there and wave and say 'Hello, I'm Raymond, shall we play some music?' He chastised himself, mild panic fluttering in his belly as he stared blankly out the window at the weak flurries of falling snow.

"Hey, Maestro, you still with me?" Benicio asked. He shifted toward Raymond in his seat, waving a hand back and forth to try to return him to reality.

Raymond's lips twitched as he struggled against a smile. Maestro. They'd only been working together for about five hours and Benicio had already called him that four times. There was something about his tone when he said it, completely earnest and almost obsequious, that Raymond found very entertaining and maybe a little endearing.

He cleared his throat, leaning back in his office chair as he looked a Benicio. "You can just call me Raymond, you know. That's - that's fine."

Benicio turned slightly pink and ignored the comment. "Well, did you accept the meeting request in Outlook, then? I just sent it."

Raymond sighed and leaned toward his computer, squinting at the monitor and then opening his eyes wide as he stared at it, finally wrangling the cursor with the mouse. He clicked Accept on the new invite in his inbox. "It's on the 11th?"

"Mmmhhm, at 8:00 p.m.," Benicio said. "At the Bailey Hartinger Gallery in Soho. You get a plus one, of course…" He leaned forward almost imperceptibly, his eyes darting over Raymond's face.

Raymond's lips twitched against another smile. He turned and blinked at Benicio's expression impassive. "Okay," was all he said.

"Okay," Benicio replied after a beat, finally dropping his eyes back to his tablet. "Oh, I missed this one before, sorry," he said, with a little wince. "You have a photo shoot. Next Thursday, 6:00 p.m. Don't worry, won't interfere with rehearsals…it's for the promotional campaign for the new season."

Raymond nodded.

"I'm sure you have plenty of experience with those types of things," Benicio said, with a knowing smirk.

Raymond raised his eyebrows.

"Photo shoots," Benicio prompted.

"Oh," Raymond said, giving a little laugh and a half-nod, feeling a bit self-conscious. He ducked his head and scratched at the back of his neck. "Uh, right." The last photo shoot he'd done had been for Esquire; they'd written a profile on him right before the release of his latest album. They'd shot him almost completely nude, on the side of a dusty road with just his cello. He felt like a ridiculous embarrassment every time he remembered that the pictures even existed. (It certainly wasn't as though Sam was going to stop reminding him any time soon. "'S my lock screen for life, sorry friend.")

"When can I get to the important stuff, then?" he asked, abruptly, looking back up at Benicio. He placed his palms on the desk in front of him, spreading his fingers out on the smooth wood and tapping at it anxiously. This was all beginning to feel like horribly executed foreplay and he was impatient to get past it, itching to get to the actual work.

"The important stuff?" Benicio asked, looking a little unsure.

"Yeah, can I just start setting up meetings with the section leaders right now?" Raymond asked, his voice edging toward strident. He gestured loosely to the Outlook calendar on the monitor in front of him. "Do I just email them? Or have you taken care of that as well? Is there already some sort of established schedule for that kind of thing?" His first performance with the orchestra was just about a month and a half away, and he had his heart set on a rather ambitious piece. Sitting here in his shiny office discussing photo shoots and charity events with Benicio was making him feel like time was already slipping through his fingers, like there just wouldn't be enough.

Benicio nodded slowly. "Yeah, yeah, of course we can do that stuff…" he said. He looked down at where Raymond's leg was bouncing violently under the desk and then looked back up at Raymond, his eyes thoughtful. "Did you want to head over to St. Luke's now? There's a small office for you over there, too. We could get you settled in a bit before everyone else arrives; then I can cross-check everybody's schedules while you're rehearsing, get you set up for one-on-one meetings with each section leader and a group meeting with all of them by the end of the week."

Raymond stilled his knee, nodding. "Ok," he said, letting out a relieved sigh. "Yes. Let's do that."

"You got it, Maestro," Benicio said, smiling as they got to their feet. Raymond smiled back, a little more endeared this time.

They folded themselves into their coats and made their way down to the lobby.

"Taylor Leung first, if possible," Raymond said, as they passed under the banner from the previous night, heading toward the Silk Street exit


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

As it turned out, Raymond liked his office at St. Luke's immediately. He liked it more than the one at the Barbican. Much more. As soon as he and Benicio opened the door, it just felt right. It was dingy and cramped. There was layer of sticky dust coating the bookshelf along the left wall and light was only barely filtering in through the odd, milky glass in the room's lone window. Every second breath Raymond caught a hint of the lingering, phantom aroma of stale cigarette smoke and Windex. But it felt like a practice room, and that was nice.

Benicio didn't seem quite so satisfied. It looked a little bit like his worst fears had been realized. He ran a displeased finger over the top of one of the ancient filing cabinets as Raymond took a stack of scores out of his satchel and plunked them down on the old war horse of a desk in the middle of the room.

"All right, Benicio?" Raymond asked, amused at his distaste.

Benicio looked down at the grime on his fingertip and pulled a face. "I am if you are…I guess," he said skeptically, turning in a slow circle to take in all of the little room. "Just wondering. You know. If this is really the best we could do…" He raised his eyebrows at an ugly blob of industrial glue next to the bookshelves, where it appeared something had been wrenched off the wall.

Raymond laughed and shrugged, opening and shutting the drawers of the desk to see if there was anything inside. Leftover office supplies, perhaps? Some abandoned pens or paper clips? Rubber bands? Maybe a stray bottle of Wite-Out or several useless highlighters? Obviously a secret love note would be the best-case scenario, but Raymond wasn't holding out hope. Turned out there was only 40p and three red thumbtacks.

"Did Gergiev ever use this office before he left?" he asked, doubtful. He glanced up at Benicio. "He didn't, did he?"

Benicio let out a punch of a laugh and scoffed, "Absolutely not. No sir." He shook his head.

"Well, I like it," Raymond said, smiling as he eased down into what seemed to be a practically pre-war office chair. Not an ergonomic element in sight. It creaked pleasantly beneath him.

Benicio was still unconvinced.

"Location, location, location, Benicio!" Raymond pointed out, leaning back in the chair, testing out its strength. For all its perceived shortcomings, the office was tucked into a small lobby directly off the back of the rehearsal hall, all by itself next to some dank-looking bathrooms. It was convenient, but it felt secluded and remote, like a secret, and Raymond loved that. He laughed, "I bet everyone only comes back here when they need to take a shit."

Benicio looked fairly disgusted now.

Raymond giggled. "Aw, c'mon, Benicio. Privacy! That's what everyone likes. Get all settled in and then down to business!"

Benicio just blinked, lips twisted in a grimace.

"Lighten up!" Raymond said, still laughing. And then because he simply could not resist, "Everybody poops."

Benicio was a little affronted, not by the statement about the naturalness of bowel movements, but by the suggestion that he should take it easy. He started to adjust his body language, like you do right before you unsuccessfully try to convince someone that you are not, in fact, uptight. He over-relaxed his facial muscles and his posture. It looked like he might be seconds away from using some kind of "laid-back" slang he wasn't quite comfortable with, perhaps on the verge of telling Raymond he was "stoked" he'd started as the new Maestro. Raymond was liking Benicio more and more.

"All right," Benicio said, once Raymond had ceased chuckling at his clear discomfort. "I'm going to go hunt someone down and find the keys to this place." It had been a stroke of luck that it had been unlocked to begin with. "And then I'll check with Keller to make sure she's still on schedule."

Raymond nodded, swallowing hard. His nerves crackled back to life as Benicio slipped out of the office, no longer there to distract him from the looming rehearsal. He stood up and stretched, running a hand through his hair and smoothing out his tie, straightening his suit jacket on his shoulders. Then he inhaled through his nose and slowly out through his mouth several times with a hand on his solar plexus, taking deep, measured breaths to calm himself.


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Two of the four walls of the office were covered in blackboard, lines of staff permanently drawn on for convenience. Raymond drifted over to the one on his left, noticing for the first time that there was a clef, a key, and a sloppily written time signature on the staff at the top of the board. Notes and bars followed after, covering the length and height of it. The chalk was smudged and faint and he wondered how long it had been up there, who had left it. He took another deep breath and started to run through the music on the blackboard in his head, humming it carelessly in an effort to relax. His arms began to move as if of their own accord, his right hand setting a steady andante tempo and his left gently sculpting the air as he quickly built a dynamic concept in his mind. Two, three... Raymond turned, following the music as it curved around the room, continuing onto the blackboard on the adjacent wall.

"What the f-" A sharp voice came from his right, halting abruptly into a frustrated, strangled noise. Raymond jolted back to the present, his hands stilling in mid-air. He swiveled his head quickly in order to see who was speaking.

"What - what are you doing in here?" Taylor Leung stood glowering at the door, clutching its handle in a white-knuckled grip. Her eyes looked slightly manic and almost alarmed before they darkened, narrowing at Raymond, her brows slanting in disdain.

Raymond's head jerked back. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of Taylor, small and smoldering in the doorway. A wicked pulse of indignation ripped through Raymond's body, cracking like a whip as it ran up his spine and tingled out into his extremities. It mixed with a twinge of distantly familiar humiliation, hot and low in his belly, and Raymond felt his face flush as blood rushed past his ears.

"What am I-?" he finally managed in shocked disbelief, his own brows knitting. He shook his head in bemusement, and when he resumed speaking it was deliberate and slow, as firm as he could make it in his agitated state. "This is my office."

"Your offi-" Taylor cut herself off with an outraged huff, her jaw jutting out, two delicately formed fingers pressed to her left temple. She gave a quick shake of her head and grabbed the eraser from the ledge of the closest blackboard, barging right in and furiously erasing the music that Raymond had just been running through, muttering angrily under his breath as he did so.

Raymond let out an aborted bark of laughter, his heart pounding. He crossed his arms and regarded Taylor incredulously.

Taylor whirled around to look at him after she'd completed her task. The black of her eyes seemed to slash through the room as they darted about, moving over Raymond's face like electricity and making his cheeks heat up. Taylor kept standing there, her chest rising and falling visibly, clenching and re-clenching her left fist around something in her palm. She'd pushed back the sleeves of her jumper, and Raymond watched as the tendons in her forearm shifted under her skin. Raymond raised his eyebrows in a silent prompt for some kind of an explanation. It appeared that one would not be forthcoming.

Okay," Raymond said after several more beats, rubbing his forehead and giving another little laugh, not sure how to proceed. "Um." He shifted his weight and thumbed a stray lock of hair off his forehead. "Well, I'm Raymond Chan," he said slowly, leaning forward with an outstretched hand. "I'm, um. The - the new interim conductor…"

Taylor snorted and rolled her eyes. "I know who you are," she snapped, ignoring Raymond's hand. Raymond burst into outright laughter at that, finally pushed into genuine amusement by Taylor Leung's ridiculous behavior and not knowing what else to do. He didn't fail to notice the little stab of satisfaction he got from the pink it brought to Taylor's cheeks.

Raymond leaned back against his desk and crossed his legs at the ankles. "Oh. Okay," he said, hand scrubbing at the back of his neck, still laughing a little in disbelief as he waited for Taylor to make the next move.

Taylor was just a bit uneasy now, standing awkwardly before Raymond. She was still tense, her slight frame pulled taut like a bowstring, but the manic fury that seemed to have propelled her into the office had died out. She looked ever so slightly contrite (but also irritated at having to feel that way), and gave a rather exaggerated sigh before stepping forward and finally extending her hand for Raymond to shake.

"Taylor Leung," she said, grudgingly. "Concertmaster." Raymond felt a low-level buzz in his bones as their hands slid together. Taylor was making eye contact with him, but it felt detached and distant, like she was actually trying to stare through Raymond to the dusty green metal bookshelf on the opposite wall. A surge of annoyance replaced Raymond's amusement when he realized. He was strangely incensed by it, really, suddenly consumed by an itch to make Taylor look him right in the eye, to make Taylor fully acknowledge his presence. He tightened his grip on Taylor's hand just a shade as they shook, enough that he saw something flicker in Taylor's gaze.

"I know who you are, Ms. Leung." Raymond kept his tone purposefully arch, letting it rumble out slowly, his eyes trained directly on Taylor's face. "Believe me, I remember."

And then there they were, Taylor's vivid eyes, flashing up in surprise to burn right into Raymond's. Making Raymond's heart beat even faster as Taylor snatched back her hand.

"I'll see you at rehearsal, sir," she said tersely, moving toward the door. She paused when he saw the score that Raymond had plopped onto the desk earlier, her gaze moving quickly over the title. She looked back up at Raymond and raised her eyebrows, clearly unimpressed, rolling her eyes one last time as she turned on her heel and swept out of the room.

Raymond sat stunned and breathless on the edge of his desk in the empty office, unable to stop seeing the contempt in Taylor's last look. He let the shame it aroused in him squirm into his stomach and swirl together with resentment... and something that felt dangerously close to desire.

"No bite," Raymond repeated with a bitter chuckle. This was going to be interesting.


	11. AUTHORS NOTE

Okay... So I just wanted to clear things up a bit... There will probably be a new story coming up! I really don't know all the details bc I share this account. This Taymond Ceung fic is obviously what I wrote and the other owner of this account, A, beta-ed. This time she will write her fic and I will be her beta. But this isn't guaranteed! And remember that the Taymond fic will still be going on, but I won't be posting very often anymore. Probably like once a week or so. Not everyday. I actually have a ton of schoolwork going on even though I have like 16 days of school left. Andddd after school is finished I'll be going away for literally the whole summer. IKR I CRI EVERYTIM I WANNA STAY AT HOME, NOT GO TO SOME COUNTRY WHERE I DONT HAVE DECENT WIFI AND WHERE YOUTUBE, INSTAGRAM, SNAPCHAT, TWITTER, AND TUMBLR ARE BLOCKED SMKJKMERFJNKCDCJKNSDCJKN KILL ME. Yeah, you guessed it, it's China. Well that turned into a rant pretty quickly. Buttttttttttttttttttttt ty all you ppl who read this (probably nobody) and see ya

-K


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